


Proud Evergreen Tree

by Washedawaycloud



Series: Ripples of Bad Wolf [11]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Depression, Gen, Grief, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:54:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29061660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Washedawaycloud/pseuds/Washedawaycloud
Summary: A shadow before the Storm
Series: Ripples of Bad Wolf [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2050176
Kudos: 2





	Proud Evergreen Tree

He thought he was getting better. He thought, with the dreams, with Rose there, with his …whatever it was that kept the Corsair alive in his mind, that he could thwart the darkness that grabbed at him. Darkness is too simple a term for it, really. He could give it a dozen names. Depression, survivors’ guilt, probably a goodly helping of PTSD if he wants to really get into the meat of things. Self-loathing that spanned centuries at this point.

He couldn’t find the Corsair in his dreams anymore. And he knew, this time, that he had really lost her. She’d saved Rose, but it cost him what tenuous holds to sanity he had. He hadn’t even realized that she was still in his head. That she was still breathing, somewhere, out in that vast universe.

Donna may have been able to anchor him and shake some sense into him, but he’d terrified her. He knew he had. Knew it the moment she’d had to call for him and he considered allowing himself to die. It would have been so easy, to just stay, and force his brain to not allow the usual lindos trigger to activate. Sweet oblivion reached in a matter of minutes. Drowning wasn’t the best way to go, but he hasn’t gone that way before, and why not. One last hurrah before the big finish.

Stars, he groans and leans his head against the console. He’s suicidal. Fantastic, absolutely, _Brilliant_. The Corsair would have walloped him if she’d heard that, and then dragged him to the nearest qualified Psychologist. And that would have turned into a screaming match because if anyone else needed therapy – it was her.

His hands rub over his face. The pair of them were a mess that formed a somehow functioning partnership. And then, there was Rose. Rose who would have been shocked to hear the darkness of his thoughts, and then sat him down with a TARDIS full of tea, to pry his most horrible secrets from him in an effort to understand, and help. Those were the women he loved.

The women who never stood down when he yelled. The women who wouldn’t hesitate to swing when he pushed them too far. The ones who kicked him into being better than he could imagine being whilst left alone. How could he do this without them?

The TARDIS sings the song he knows as that of mourning. He’d heard it so often during the War. And he hadn’t been able to go to pieces during the War. There wasn’t the time, and the irony of that statement will never fail to make him snort, as he does now. No time for the Time Lords. Rassilon they’d all been fools.

“Come on, my lady love,” he coos at the TARDIS after hours of silence. “Off we go, we’ve got some running to do.”

He can run. The running was all that’s left now. He won’t take another wife, accidentally or otherwise, and there will not be another Rose on his ship. His hearts just can’t take it. Short trips only. Day trippers. No lodgers. Not again.

He had so many scars to heal.


End file.
